Friday, March 25, 2011

Can Tim Wu Save the Internet? - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Apple and its chief executive, Steve Jobs, are the players "most interested in a complete paradigm shift" in computing, he says. They want to replace the chaotic freedom of personal computers with a new regime of controlled devices. (Picture the televisionlike iPad, with its strictly vetted App Store, and you get the idea.) It's a familiar rap to anyone who follows these geek debates, at least until Wu pivots to Plato.

"Plato suggested that the finest form of government was dictatorship run by geniuses," he says. "Jobs realizes that dictatorial rule, if done well, will be more popular than democracy."